Final chapter.

HDWL next. Sort of...

There could be seen, just the faintest silhouette against the deepening blue sky. The pair of them had walked out some hours before, a blanket thrown across their shoulders despite the heat of day. Mustang leant heavily on his aide, and it was difficult to tell what was hindering him more: the sand or his ankle. The team together with Little Ita watched them as they fought through the deep sands, and picked their way up the slopes to a thin ridge that rose out of the desert like a sail.

It had been nine days now since that darkest of moments when Mustang was swallowed whole by his past.

No-one asked Havoc what exactly happened in the damp, terrifying confines of the medical tent as the women performed rite after rite after rite, ridding the general and his aide of their 'rot'. Breda had read enough about Ishbal before their departure to guess perhaps, and Fuery's imagination might have struck lucky from time to time. However, even if he wanted to, Havoc wasn't sure if he could even articulate the things he saw. How many demons could be banished from one man? How many exorcisms, screams and gnashings of teeth had Havoc seen in those few hours that seemed like centuries?

Mother Ita drove the ceremony forward like a Shaman from a children's horror book. Man and woman were stripped and drugged – aggressively – snake's venom and some root that bled all colour from their faces. There were incisions made, hundreds of incisions, cut by strong fingers that moved like serpents. 'Bleed it out,' Ita had said. Hawkeye – delirious, hands swiping like a crazed lioness – fought at them and threw herself atop her leader, weeping and begging him to wake up. So they drugged her more, and cut her more until she curled beside her naked fellow, clutching at his chest fitfully. There followed black sweat and foaming mouths, words screamed, whispered and sang in Ishballan, and a woman with eyes rolling who forced pebbles into the general's mouth. Then more drugs, more tears – Havoc fretting and fighting them only to be pushed back, and back – judged by so many knowing eyes.

'Don't you want him to live? Don't you want this man to live?'

Then the water was cast out and new, steaming buckets brought in. Sand and near boiling water ravaged skin already peppered with tens of wounds. They cleaned every inch of them, Mustang crying softly, trying to push unseen hands from him, weak as a new born kitten. Then again, Havoc fell forward – shocked and wounded by it all – as shears were pulled from a small leather bag. Again he was pushed back and admonished for his foolish selfishness. Clumps of hair, black and blonde, fell to the sweat soaked linen as both bodies clung to each other like a pair of drunk lovers. In the end, they lay there panting, eyes slitted and unseeing until a final dose of medicine sank them beneath the dark waves of unconsciousness.

And that's how they remained, as figure after figure came to observe them; cry because of, over, for them. Each person kissed each temple until the last Ishballan had finished; the Flame Alchemist and his rare bird wearing poppy bruises where so many lips had offered benediction.

Ita must have sensed something in Havoc for when the tent flap closed after the last retreating back, she opened her hand to his superiors.

He shook his head, 'no.'

She moved to Mustang, resting a hand on his head.

"Didn't you also lose something to this man? His cause?" she said, fingers making soothing motions on his ear. "Your legs,... your youth... your freedom to be idle, reckless..."

"He... was worth it," the lieutenant muttered. "And I'm standing here talking to you, aren't I?"

Ita nodded, her palm coming to rest on his head again like a crown. Her red eyes bored into Havoc's.

"So take his guilt from him."

Havoc stared at her, then at Mustang lying prone and naked on the cot. With his head shaved, the white nicks from countless dog fights and bigger battles could clearly be made out. His side was a purple, ugly mess; his left knee cap sunken slightly from when a hefty piece of shrapnel caught him at the front. His bruised ribs were angry and his ankle looked a state. And still, the military – Amestris had taken more from him. So much from this one man, who was once a boy... who was once somebody's son, except that was taken from him too.

Then Hawkeye; bone white, hair shorn, jaw swollen and battered, neck marred by a shocking veil of white... The world had made orphans of them, monsters of them, and heroes of them; and had never given back.

Havoc was crying again. "Fuck," he whispered.

He approached the pair, silent tears spilling. He sniffed and lowered himself, as tenderly and reverently as he possibly could, and pressed a kiss firmly to Hawkeye's forehead, then to Mustang's. He pulled back, and moved so by the sleeping face of his master, allowed himself another, holding his lips there for the longest time.

When he looked up, Mother Ita had gone and all that remained of the whole affair was the three of them.

He lurched to his feet and fetched a blanket from the corner. He spread it over the pair: Mustang's leg hooked behind Hawkeye's knee, Hawkeye's lips pressed to the cup of Mustang's jaw, hands on backs, fingers intertwined...

They looked like a painting, relics of a wicked past ready to carry the world to a bright future; through a river of blood.

Mustang had started shivering, his teeth chattering where his chin rested on Hawkeye's shoulder. She sat between his legs, wrapped in his arms and burrowed in the pitiful warmth of the blanket. They'd stumbled from the tent, who knows when, dressed in nothing but their uniform trousers and white shirts. Now with the sun setting, they were freezing where they sat. Neither of them spoke for a very long time.

"It's time to move," he said.

She nodded, her hair bristling his cheek. "You first, sir."

He stood weakly, and as the fading light caught him, she was startled to see him so changed. It were as if time had kinked up and buckled at the seam. Gone was the youthful roundness of his face, gone were the stray locks of hair that flew about him whichever way the wind blew. Here was suddenly a man, sinewy and powerful – wealthy in thought, armed with experience.

Dark eyes as steady as always but calmer somehow, more present than they'd ever been studied her. Serene.

He offered her a smile, then his hand. She took it and stood.

Thanks chaps! And here's to disastergirl. Sorry for typos... publishing this on the trot and will tidy later.

I hope you liked :)